Even today's students want us to bring back grammar schools

YOUNG people want the return of grammar schools even though almost none of their generation have ever had the chance to benefit from going to one.

Many pupils would have preferred the 11-plus system (PIC POSED BY MODELS) [GETTY]

However, that did not stop the vast majority of people aged between 18 and 24 from saying that they would have received a better education if the 11-plus system was restored.

A YouGov poll, conducted for the National Grammar Schools Association, found that 80 per cent of the age group were in favour of creating new grammar schools and maintaining the 164 establishments that survived Labour’s cull in the 1970s.

In the parts of the country where grammar schools exist the competition to win a place is intense. Each year an average of 1,500 children sit the 11-plus in the hope of gaining one of the 180 places available at each school.

Robert McCartney, NGSA chairman, said: “The answer, if you believe in parental choice, which this Tory-led Government claims, is that parents should be able to have a grammar school in their area if they want one.

“However, this is not the case because I think both Michael Gove and David Cameron believe that the grammar school lobby, with the false overtone of elitism, is electorally a bad card to play.

“Blair was once asked why he had not abolished the remaining grammar schools. His reply was that it would be the final provocation of an educational war.

“Michael Gove wrote a paper while in opposition. On every count it was a promotion for grammar schools except that he didn’t call them grammar schools; they were ‘comprehensive grammars’.

“They were grammar schools in ethos as the right place to go but politically they were the elephant in the room.

“We have campaigned against a clause in the 1998 Education Act which stated that parents could have a poll for having a grammar school turned into a comprehensive, a move which was attempted only once in Yorkshire and it was defeated.

“However, there is no similar clause where parents can push a vote to have a comprehensive turned into a grammar school.”

Michael Gove wrote a paper while in opposition effectively promoting grammar schools [GETTY]

Parents should be able to have a grammar school in their area if they want one

Robert McCartney, NGSA chairman

A further YouGov poll, conducted in June, showed overwhelming support for grammar schools to be set up in Greater London, with 60 per cent wanting to see them returning to the capital.

Respondents were asked what political party they supported and it emerged that 57 per cent of Labour voters favoured grammar schools while 72 per cent of Tory supporters also wanted selective education to be reintroduced.

The survey also found that grammar schools got even more backing among ethnic minorities than from the white middle class, with 61 per cent of London’s ethnic groups in favour of having grammar school education in the capital for the first time in decades.

Earlier this month a report from the influential Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed that English school-leavers had poorer literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills than their grandparents, the only country among 24 wealthy nations where this was the case.

New research on the same data has also revealed that grammar schools have left a lasting legacy in Britain because of the unique quality of the education they offered.

The country’s over-55s ­outperform their peers in other countries because England’s schools in the 1960s and early 1970s, before the abolition of school selection for 11-year-olds, were of such a high quality.

Grammar schools were axed in the 1970s to be replaced by comprehensives.

Researcher Dr Gijsbert Stoet found that in every other nation studied by the OECD, people’s literacy, numeracy and problem-solving improved until they were in their mid- to late-20s and then went into a steady decline.

Blair believed the abolition of grammars would provoke an education war [GETTY]

However, Britain was different and we have the only older generation which significantly outperformed contemporaries in other countries around the globe.

Dr Stoet, a psychologist at Glasgow University’s School of Education, said: “The general decline in performance is due to the ageing process. The UK was the only country where older people performed significantly better than the younger generation and so there was a blip.

“It would seem that primary and secondary education was so good that it still has an effect today with the over-55s who benefited from it.”

Last year it was announced that Kent County Council was to allow the creation of “satellite extensions” to existing grammar schools, a move heralded as the first step in the rebirth of selective education.

The first was earmarked for Sevenoaks, which is the only town in the county without a grammar school and where 1,200 grammar school children are currently transported at least 20 miles each day to the nearest selective school.

However a row blew up when the Department for Education tried to take over the site of the former Wildernesse School in the town for one of the free schools being championed by Education Secretary Michael Gove, even though Kent councillors had decided that it would become the site for their grammar annexe.

Following talks held over the last few months between government officials and the county council the Government has now announced its agreement to the Wildernesse site being the location of the grammar annexe after councillors insisted it was their preferred option.

The new free school, which the Department for Education had been pushing to get the land, will also go ahead and it will be allowed to lease part of the extensive site from the county council.